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PROTECTING THE BLOSSOMS OF FRUIT TREES ON OPEN WALLS. 
are in use in different places, but which cannot be deemed sufficient in frosts of the in- 
tensity of that which has called forth these observations. However simple they may be, 
if they are not perfectly efficacious, much labour is misapplied, and we think it would be 
wiser to make a small amount of certain provision rather than to have a larger extent liable 
to casualty. 
In cases of slight frost, the simple appliances we are about to enumerate answer very 
well, but severe frosts render them of little avail. What we then really want is a 
sufficient power of warding off intense cold, to be used in a perfectly ad libitum manner. 
The materials generally used for expediency are : Beech boughs with the dried leaves 
adhering to them, Spruce-fir boughs, Yew boughs, the spray of branches, such as is used 
for pea-sticks, canvas, bunting, old fish-nets, woollen netting, &c. 
Beech boughs are only procurable in some peculiar districts, as in the chalk formation 
in Buckinghamshire, where they are very generally used for this purpose, for which their 
uniform dryness and lightness render them very eligible. 
The boughs of Spruce-fir trees and those of the common Yew afford good protection, 
and possess this advantage, that, after being on some time, the leaves fall off, preventing 
the too sudden exposure of the embryo fruit which is frequently injurious. Of fish-netting, 
woollen netting, bunting and similar materials, we can only say that they are protectors in 
slight frosts, but not in intense ones ; we believe, that when placed permanently against 
a wall, they frequently occasion much mischief in the hot days (of which we have usually 
some) in the month of March, by preventing the circulation of air essential for the proper 
setting of the fruit, and obstructing the required amenity of that indispensable agent in all 
vegetative process, solar light. 
We cannot refrain from again drawing attention to the small portable upright Dutch 
forcing house, or rather glass case which we have seen so generally and advantageously 
used in Holland, for both late and early forcing. The Apricot is there treated thus, and is 
cultivated to a greater extent than the Peach ; and surely there is no fruit which is more 
deserving of a little extra care and expense, and none so ill calculated for the open wall, 
either in the country or the moist climate of Holland. 
In all which relates to the protection of tender plants it must be borne in mind that it 
is not the lowest degree of temperature which they are capable of enduring in their native 
countries, after their growth has been matured and indurated by powerful suns, that must 
be taken as a criterion of their hardihood in the climate of Great Britain with its undeter- 
mined fluctuations ; it is not the positive intensity of the cold in this country that thwarts 
the energies and blasts the hopes of gardeners and their employers ; but it is the unexpected 
excitement of to-day in a period of comparative rest, and the paralysis of to-morrow, that 
must be ever guarded against if we wish to succeed, and to do this effectually we must not 
only make provision for the probable but also for the possible, and to that end it is hoped 
these remarks may in some degree be instrumental. 
There is perhaps no other country in which the qualities of skill, observation, reflection 
and unceasing energy are so inseparable from the profession of a gardener as in this ; and 
it is perhaps mainly owing to the difficulties of our climate which are from time to time 
acting as stimuli to our exertions, and calling into action those talents, which were it more 
auspicious might have remained latent, that we may attribute the superiority of our great 
exhibitions, to anything else of the kind which can be found in the civilised world. 
In conclusion then, we would again advise those who possess extensive walled gardens, 
and desire to have certain crops of fruit, to multiply their small and economical glass 
structures, and those who are forming gardens to build their walls so that heat can be 
applied when occasion requires, and we think we have demonstrated the necessity of these 
precautions by well-authenticated facts. 
In the appendix to Mr. Reeves’ ingenious observations on Miniature Fruit Trees, there 
is a plan for protecting Peaches and Nectarines well worthy of attention, and which we have 
no doubt will in time be modified so as to prove a cheap and useful means of protection 
and acceleration. 
